Rebeca Johnston of the Canadian women's hockey team has a laugh as she helps her captain Marie-Philip Poulin get up on top of the net for some team pictures.Jean Levac / Postmedia

As much as they are a pre-Games powerhouse, the 23 women charged with winning another gold couldn’t help being kids for part of an afternoon

GANGNEUNG — At one end of the rink at the Kwandong Hockey Centre, Sarah Nurse sat on top of the net with teammate Emily Clark, while goaltender Geneviève Lacasse joined in the moment as the selfie taker.

At centre ice Jillian Saulnier and Blayre Turnbull, the first two Canadian women hockey Olympians from the great province of Nova Scotia, were lying flat on the ice for their pose.

As much as they are a pre-Games powerhouse and will take a 20-game Olympic winning streak into the Pyeongchang tournament, the 23 women charged to make it happen couldn’t help being kids for part of an afternoon.

Yes, the pressure will gradually cranked towards high starting with Sunday’s tournament opener against the Olympic Athletes of Russia. But general manager Melody Davidson and coach Laura Schuler backed off for three days encouraging their players to sightsee and soak up the atmosphere at the Olympic Village.

And then on Thursday the wide-eyed players saw the rink where they hope to make great things happen, greeted when they walked into the dressing room with the sleek uniforms they’ll wear throughout.

“It was so exciting to see our rookies walking into the dressing room and seeing the Olympic jersey,” captain Marie-Philip Poulin said, post-practice. “It’s always such a moment of pride and honour to be part of this team.

“To see their smiles, you remember what it feels like and you get excited yourself.”

Genevieve Lacasse (L) takes a selfie with Sarah Nurse (M) and Emily Clark (R) of the Canadian women’s hockey team.

Though the practice was just a brisk 40-minute session, Schuler loved the pace and the fast ice-surface which suits a team with nine rookies just fine. They’ll build on that through practices on Friday and Saturday leading to the first game of the Olympics after more than six months of rigorous preparation.

“We were able to get out there and test out the boards and the ice and I couldn’t be more happy with the facilities,” Schuler said. “The lighting was fantastic and the ice was really smooth. All the girls were saying how fast the ice felt.”

As for the 20-game win streak, which isn’t likely to face a stiff challenge until they face the Americans in a preliminary-round tilt on Feb. 14, Schuler sees it as more of a motivator than a burden.

For starters, there is incentive to finish first in group play and secure one of the two byes into the semi-finals, plus home-ice designation through the gold medal game. But the psychological advantage of seeming unbeatable on an Olympic ice surface has some juice as well.

While all most want to talk about is the likely gold showdown with the Americans, Schuler and Davidson have stressed the need to excel every day on the ice, not just when there are prospects to face the arch-enemies from south of the border.

Genevieve Lacasse (L) takes a selfie with Laura Staey, Sarah Nurse (2nd from R) and Emily Clark (R) of the Canadian women’s hockey team prior to their practice.

“I think we want to win every game that we play,”Schuler said. “That’s our goal. Our goal for every game is to ultimately be the best that we can be. We feel really confident with where we are at. I’m happy even with today’s ice session and how it went. The energy was really good. We’ve been here for almost 16 days and had an opportunity to adjust. We’re really happy with our plan.”

The Canadians certainly seemed to be a loose group on Thursday, perhaps in contrast to Team USA which has to be feeling immense pressure to finally win their first gold since 1998.

Coach Robb Stauber can appear wound up at times and why wouldn’t he be? Sure, the Americans can win world championships by the full bushel, but when it comes to the Olympics it’s a drastically different story.

And now coming into these Games, the Americans are seeking to overcome a drought which saw them score just three goals in the final four games of a pre-Olympic series against Canada.

“Quite frankly we believe that we can score more than we have,” Stauber said. “The players understand that, and you will see a team that gets pucks to the net more than we have in the past. If we do that we really, really like our chances.”

The Canadians really love their prospects as well. And they’re here for much more important business than the special selfies taken to mark the occasion.

“There’s confidence, obviously, but we’re not going to sit on that,” said forward Natalie Spooner. “We don’t take anything for granted and focus on ourselves.

“We’ve been together since August and we’re pretty excited to get the tournament started.”

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.